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Come next week

There is something peaceful about
reflecting on the year as we ready ourselves for the next one.

It’s a time, at least for me, to look
back over what the last 12 months had brought into my life.

The moments of joy and happiness.

The obstacles that had been dealt with,
whether I successfully bested them, or they knocked me down.

It helps me to take a personal review
and see, most importantly, where I made mistakes and missteps and maybe what I can
do better.

And this year, like the last few, has had
its share of ups and downs.

I would get excited about one thing, to
only find myself crestfallen the next day.
Granny used to not get overly happy when good things happened. “Life will
balance it out soon enough,” she would say.

That always bothered me, as if it was
some self-fulfilling prophecy on her part to usher in something that would tilt
the scales of joy more towards the disappointment side.

“No, I am just not going to get my hopes
up,” she would tell me.

But this year has taught me to get my hopes
up, because in the middle of those high hopes, we are holding on to a thread of
faith that can maybe be our lifeline.

I know this year has had some painful
moments.

And I’m not just talking about the tragedies
we see on the news.

Those were horrible and hurt us as a
collective whole.

But sometimes the moments that hurt us
the most are those personal events that cause us pain. Grief, loss, failure –
we have all faced them this year.

Friends went through divorces.

Quiet a few lost their spouse; others lost
other family members and friends.

And some battled private battles they
didn’t share.

I know I dealt with worries and fears
that I didn’t speak about, least they come true.

I have tried, instead, to focus on the
things I could control, on the things that I could change.

Sometimes, there were not many, so I let
go of the things I couldn’t handle.

But every now and then, something sad or
unsettling would creep its way into my life.

In fact, it seems like I have been
marking years by the sad events lately more than happy ones.

“It takes rain and the sun to make the flowers
grow,” Mama reminds me.

I get it. I do. But I am hoping for a
little less rain in the coming year, both figuratively and literally.

In her sweet, gentle way she was letting
me know that we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the beauty of the flowers without
the rain and the sun, two things that if in excess can be harmful. But in the
right amounts, make beautiful flowers.

“I am just ready for things to be stable
and not so chaotic,” I stated one day. “I want things to be kind of on an even
keel.”

Mama sighed. “Everyone probably wishes
for that, Kitten,” she said. “But that is not life.”

No, life is not always stable or even
keeled, is it?

It’s full of the ups and downs; the
good, the bad. The sad, heartbreaking moments followed by the highest of joys. Sometimes,
they come in the same week or at the least, the same year.

I know – I have been through all of those
more times than I can count.

It’s just life.

We didn’t notice it when we were
younger, mainly because our parents were better deflectors and shielded us from
a lot of the stuff that people experience now.

But we will keep striving, fighting,
trying to find the happiness and joy that bring us joy, even if it means we
will have those disappointments and failures that crush our soul.

This year has knocked so many of us down
and we have dusted ourselves and resolutely stuck our chin out as if to say, we
are not giving up and out of sheer stubbornness, we won’t either.

It has been 12 months of chaos, hectic
schedules, and everyday moments of life, that if we aren’t careful, will slip
by, unnoticed and unappreciated.

Days that passed so quickly, one would
think they were on a train, moving from one holiday to the next.